Skip to main content

Infinity Blade: Dungeons put on hold as Epic Games shutters Impossible Studios

Infinity_Blade_Dungeons_Announce
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Epic Games has closed its recently opened subsidiary Impossible Studios. Staffed by the team that used to make up Big Huge Games before its parent company 38 Studios declared bankruptcy in 2012, Impossible Studios was hard at work on Infinity Blade: Dungeons after Epic officially opened the development house in August.

“We’re closing Impossible Studios. When former members of Big Huge Games approached Epic last year, we saw the opportunity to help a great group of people while putting them to work on a project that needed a team,” reads a statement from Epic Games’s Tim Sweeney, “It was a bold initiative and the Impossible folks made a gallant effort, but ultimately it wasn’t working out for Epic.”

Recommended Videos

“This means that Infinity Blade: Dungeons is now on hold as we figure out the future of the project.”

Epic already delayed Infinity Blade: Dungeons, a dungeon-crawling sequel to its best-selling iOS series, to 2013 in October. At the time, Epic PR representative Wes Philips said that the delay was due to Impossible Studios adding so much new content to the game. “Ever since the talented team at Impossible Studios got their hands on Infinity Blade: Dungeons, they’ve been busy adding their great ideas to the game,” said Philips. Based on Sweeney’s comments, it appears that Impossible was having more trouble finishing the game than Epic first let on.

The employees won’t be unceremoniously dropped from the company though. “In addition to providing Impossible Studios employees with 3 months of severance pay, we’ll be giving the team the opportunity to form a new company with the Impossible Studios name and the awesome Impossibear logo,” said Sweeney.

The past twelve months have been brutal for video game industry professionals. Huge companies like Sony have had to shutter prolific studios like Sony Liverpool. Publishers like THQ have imploded, its various game series and studios auctioned off to the highest bidders, while others like Vigil Games (Darksiders) had to be closed entirely. One of the biggest fiascos was the dissolution of Curt Schilling’s 38 Studios. The mismanaged studio crumbled under a mountain of unpaid debts, and left its subsidiary Big Huge Games, creator of Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, without a penny to its name. By the start of E3 2012 though, Epic had publicly stated that it planned to save Big Huge Games and its staff. It’s sad that one of the brighter stories in the game industry has ended on such a dour note.

Anthony John Agnello
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Anthony John Agnello is a writer living in New York. He works as the Community Manager of Joystiq.com and his writing has…
Monster Hunter Outlanders is the most ambitious Monster Hunter mobile game yet
Key art for Monster Hunter Outlanders.

Capcom and TiMi Studio Group announced Monster Hunter Outlanders for iOS and Android today. Unlike previous Monster Hunter games for mobile, Outlanders will more closely emulate console games with a large 3D open world to explore, real-time gameplay and combat, and cooperative hunting.

Previous Monster Hunter mobile games include Monster Hunter Now, which applied the Pokémon Go formula to Capcom's long-running series, and the matching game Monster Hunter Puzzle: Felyne Isles. In 2022, the Tencent-owned TiMi Studio Group announced its partnership with Capcom and intention to create a new mobile game that would "reproduce the hunting actions that define the Monster Hunter series." TiMi developers have created mobile adaptations of franchises like Age of Empires and Call of Duty.

Read more
Concord returns from the dead in Amazon’s Secret Level trailer
Concord's Secret Level episode.

A new trailer for Prime Video's Secret Level anthology series gives us a deeper look at its interpretations of different video games. We also learned more about the star-studded cast that will appear across these episodes. It also reaffirms that an episode based on Concord will still air even though that game is now permanently delisted and its developer is shut down.

Secret Level, which was first revealed at Gamescom Opening Night Live, is an anthology animated series where each episode is based around a different gaming franchise. Armored Core, Concord (yes, really), Crossfire, Dungeons & Dragons, Exodus, Honor of Kings, Mega Man, New World: Aeternum, Pac-Man, Sifu, Spelunky, The Outer Worlds, Unreal Tournament, and Warhammer 40,000 are all getting dedicated episodes, while another is a crossover of various "PlayStation Studios games."

Read more
How to connect Bluetooth headphones to an Xbox Series X
Xbox Series X sitting against a wall.

You can always count on your console making the best Xbox Series X games look their best, but sound quality is another story. If you don't have an expensive speaker system, your next best bet is to invest in a high-quality headset for that full soundscape while gaming. This is especially important in multiplayer games where hearing your enemy's footsteps can save your life. Most of us already own earbuds and headphones, but if they use Bluetooth then you won't be able to connect automatically. Here's how you can get around this limitation so you can hear all the upcoming Series X games crystal clear.

Read more